LONDON – British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom's The Face of an Angel, starring Kate Beckinsale, Daniel Bruhl and Cara Delevingne,is set to begin shooting in Italy next week.

The movie -- billed as a fictionalized adaptation of Angel Face: Sex, Murder and the Inside Story of Amanda Knox by Rome-based American journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau -- uses the tragic story of the 2009 murder in Umbria, Italy, of British student Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox’s initial conviction for murder as a springboard for a wider investigation of society’s fascination with violence, rather than love.

Winterbottom's film is produced by Melissa Parmenter (The Look of Love) and RiccardoTozzi (Dormant Beauty) and scripted by Paul Viragh (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll). It also stars ValerioMastandrea (The First Beautiful Thing).

WestEnd Films is currently hawking worldwide sales to buyers at the American Film Market. BBC Films produces alongside Winterbottom's Revolution Films.

In the film, Beckinsale plays an American journalist covering the trial after a British student is murdered in Tuscany, Bruhl a once-successful but now-struggling filmmaker, and Delevingne a fellow student at the college.

It shoots in Siena and Rome from Nov. 11 until Dec. 21.

The real-life trial and controversy surrounding Kercher's murder topped international headlines for months. Knox's sentence was quashed on appeal in 2011 and she was subsequently released. But in March of this year the Italian Supreme Court overturned that ruling and sent the case back to a lower court for reconsideration.

It means Winterbottom and the movie's backers have to tread carefully when it comes to any mention of the real-life events.